Use Pincel from an AI agent
pincel-mcp: a headless MCP server that lets Claude and other agents draw, preview and export.
pincel-mcp is a headless Model Context Protocol server. Claude Code, Claude Desktop or any other MCP client can create, draw, preview and export documents through it: Pixel documents (.aseprite, PNG, sprite sheets) and Image documents (PNG, JPEG, WebP, BMP, GIF, TIFF, OpenRaster .ora).
Documents live in memory. Files are read and written only inside the workspace folder you name.
Install
Download pincel-mcp-windows-x64.exe, pincel-mcp-macos-universal or pincel-mcp-linux-x64 from the latest release. Rename it to pincel-mcp (pincel-mcp.exe on Windows), make it executable (chmod +x pincel-mcp) and put it on your PATH.
Or build it from a checkout of the repository:
cargo install --path crates/pincel-mcp
Register it
With Claude Code, using the current project as the workspace:
claude mcp add pincel -- pincel-mcp --workspace .
| Option | Meaning |
|---|---|
--workspace <dir> |
The folder files may be read from and written to. Default: the current folder. |
--read-only |
No saving and no exports (doc.save, export.*). |
What the agent gets
- Tools named
area.verb, for exampledoc.new,draw.pixels,doc.preview,export.png.tools/listdescribes each one. - Resources:
pincel://guide(how to use the tools, written for the model),pincel://effects(effect and adjustment parameters) and the built-in palettes atpincel://palettes/{id}.